best capture card for awful video sources (copied vhs tapes)

[warbird]

I cannot capture bad quality copied vhs tapes with the aiw radeon 9700 pro. it scrambles up because the picture isnt strong enough for it to stay stable on the card (looks fine on the tv though). what is a card that can handle weak vhs tapes?

[davideck]

It sounds like you are in need of a timebase corrector.

[wonderuss]

Yeah, a TBC would be the solution here i use my old Panasonic wjave5 video proccesor as it has a built in TBC and i pass vhs through and it works perfectly (even if you hit the rewind button on the vcr while capturing it's ok) the wjave5 is pretty old now and you might pick one up cheap on ebay, it's cheaper than buying a dedicated TBC.

[johns0]

guess im lucky cause i can capture pretty bad vhs with minimum frame drops and picture stays the same-geforce ti 4200

[warbird]

try capturing a 3rd generation vhs copy (copy of a copy of a copy), ill bet that ti4200 will scramble up in at least some scenes. i can capture bad looking video with this also, as long as its an original or a 1st gen copy, 2nd gen is pushing the envelove and 3rd gen looks like a scrambled premium movie channel or something. tbcs are sooo expensive. id probably only use it a few times and stuff it in the closet, thats why i dont get one. but if the price is right (under $50) then id probably get it. id rather use the $ for a digital vcr with built in tbc, like some made by jvc. they cost a fortune though.

[johns0]

being a vcr tech i rather stick with first generation tapes at most but i know what you mean by 3rd generation degrade,heck ive seen tapes up to 10th generation and they make u shudder

[lordsmurf]

I have 5th generation a later video signals quite often, and use my JVC 9800, the DataVideo TBC-1000 and my ATI AIW 7200 to eat right through problems. Toss in a few filters as needed (either VideoSoap or TMPGEnc) and I'm done. I easily get better-than-the source results.

[davideck]

I use my Datavideo TBC all the time; it has eliminated all of the capturing issues I had been having, including the audio/video skew that resulted whenever there was a gap in the video.

warbird - you might want to check EBay; there's a TBC-1000 auction in process.

[johns0]

warbird,i do capture 3rd generation finnish tapes for my dad from the old country with no scrambling

[vcdforme]

Great posts!
I'm also having similar problems.

I 'm totally jazzed with my ADS pyro a/v , flawless for backing
up DVD's and Videotapes, but, on some of my crappy old tapes
where perhaps there might be a bad frame or two, it causes
the DV stream to lose many frames or even lock up for a second
or two.
I've been doing alot of reading on the subject and it seems the
universal recommendation is to get a TBC. I'd hate to plunk down all
that dough on a TBC, boring and expensive! What if I got a DV camera?
I can do straight captures thru a TV tuner card to AVI, but the fact
is, once you're use to the quality of the DV stream there's no going back.

Question:
If I recorded my (error riddled))VHS tapes into the analog port of a DV camera, saving to DV tape, would it go crazy like my DV converter, or would it somehow clean up up the errors like a TBC.??
Then I could just play the DV tape into my computer, hopefully solving
the VHS problems. Does anyone know?

thanks